The times are very hard for Nigerians. And Nigerians need a change in governance, given that the present government had made lives worse for them over the last seven years that it has been in power. Luckily or so for them, another round of elections is around the corner. This could provide them with yet another opportunity to vote in new governments at the state and federal levels which may change their fortunes for good. But they have been treated to some theatrics as the parties get closer to picking their candidates for the 2023 general elections. The presidential nominations have rather been an arena of melodrama.
The incumbent president, Muhammadu Buhari and his party, had performed woefully and the electorate would be glad to see them leave but it does not seem that it would be a walk in the park.
In Nigeria, the incumbency factor is very strong. Even when the president or the governors are leaving, they literally choose their successors. The laws governing the nomination of candidates in Nigeria grant enormous privileges to the president and the governors in the nomination process such that at the end of the day, it is their candidates that win their respective party’s nominations.
Given this scenario, a lot of drama has been playing out in the processes leading to some of the nominations. According to a timetable released by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, the national electoral body charged with conducting the 2023 general elections, nominations are to take place between May and June. So, in a short while, the parties would be out with their candidates.
But the most absurd drama has been more with the presidential nominations. First, a look at a few dramatic cases at the governorship nominations may suffice. In Rivers State, the leader of the APC, Chibuike Amaechi, who is running for president had called all the governorship aspirants into a meeting where he secured an undertaking from them not to challenge the outcome of the nomination of a consensus governorship candidate. As they stepped out of the meeting a statement was issued announcing that the party’s leadership and the aspirants had settled for Tonye Cole, who was disqualified from contesting the election in 2019. The news was still gathering steam when one of the aspirants, Ojukaye Flag-Amachree punctured the supposed consensus settlement for Cole. The leader of the other faction of the party, Senator Magnus Abe, simply dismissed the consensus arrangement and declared his own intention to go for the primaries.
In the ruling PDP in the same Rivers State, 12 aspirants purchased nomination forms for the governorship position. But the incumbent, Nyesom Wike, who himself is running for president, gave directives that no person outside the 12 should be allowed to purchase. Member of the House of Representatives, Farah Dagogo, who until then was an eye of the governor, dared the governor. Wike reacted by declaring him wanted. When other aspirants responded to invitations to come for screening, Dagogo also went and pronto, he was arrested. He is still trying to free himself after his case was charged to court for alleged attempt to disrupt the screening process by proxy..
In the ensuing drama, the Ijaw National Congress gave Wike 48 hours to free Dagogo. The governor’s response to the ultimatum was a “Thunder fire them!” bellowed at a church spulpit.
The presidential stage is however, where all the drama is.
For a very long time the speculation had been there that some leaders of the ruling APC were lobbying former President Goodluck Jonathan to defect from the PDP to the APC to get nominated to fly the party’s flag in the 2023 presidential election. Jonathan did not dispel the speculation. Just a few weeks to the presidential primary, a group of people visited him at home and urged him to run for president. He told reporters after the event that he was still studying the process, a response that did not satisfy with his admirers who wanted him to be categorical on the matter.
The real joke came about a week later when in the drama of federal ministers paying N100 million to purchase the expression of interest and nomination form, a group of Fulani herdsmen, bought the forms for Jonathan and urged him to fill them and submit. Confronted again, his media assistants issued a statement saying what happened amounted to an insult on his person. The response had hardly gained currency, when Jonathan was seen with the national chairman of APC, Abdullahi Adamu, in his office. A few days after it was reported that Jonathan had picked up an APC membership card in his village ward and was set to file his nomination for president.
No one expected that Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo would vie for the office of president in this dispensation given that his political godfather, Senator Bola Tinubu had not hidden his interest in the job. So, it was big news when the pastor of one of the biggest denominations in Nigeria, the Redeemed Christian Church of God made a broadcast in which he declared his intention to run against Tinubu for the office of President. The story badly hit the Tinubu camp, where they dismissed the vice-president as a betrayer. For those who could remember, his church, the RCCG had about a month earlier created a political department, which was directed to commence political sensitization of its members across the country. There couldn’t have been a better link with the RCCG political department and Osinbajo’s aspiration to run for president.
Former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar was having a ball using his Twitter handle for effect. This had been giving him a digital edge over his fellow aspirants in the PDP. Then religious extremists murdered Deborah Samuel in Sokoto. Atiku immediately tweeted condemning the act. When a religious fanatic follower attacked him on his position, Atiku quickly took down the tweet and disowned it. Someone tweeted: ‘Atiku lost Moslem votes when he condemned the killing of Deborah; he lost Christian votes when he deleted the tweet.
When the rush to pick up nomination forms got to a crescendo, minister of Labour and Productivity, Dr. Chris Ngige, joined in the rush. But when the presidency asked those who had indicated interest to run for elected office to resign following serious public clamour for them to resign and face their dream, Ngige and his colleagues sent in their letters of resignation. But when it dawned on him that would lose his job and would be replaced by another Anambra appointee, Ngige quickly recanted and withdrew his resignation. He denied ever writing a resignation letter.
It was the first time that an incumbent governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria indicated interest in political contest. The rumour like it was in the case of Jonathan, was flying about, tens of campaign vehicles were acquired and branded in the name of the CBN governor, Godwin Emefiele. Emefiele did not deny or confirm the development until a few people including farmers got together and bought the nomination forms for him. It was at this time that the keeper of the nation’s treasury and sensitive electoral materials began to beam with presidential smiles. He even challenged those trying to stop him with an unsuccessful court bid. When it became clear that he would lose his post to go fully into the elections, Emefiele backed out.
Former Abia State governor, Senator Orji Uzor Kalu, who was one of the earliest entrants into the presidential race suddenly developed cold feet when the race became hot. Could it be due to the high nomination fee that was non-refundable? Kalu simply explained that since the position of president was not zoned to the South-East as earlier expected, he was no longer interested.
Funny enough, after Atiku withdrew his comments on the dastardly murder of Deborah Samuel by the Sokoto mob, Nigerians have challenged the other presidential hopeful to speak up on that national issue. None of the scores of presidential aspirants is yet to speak up.
Nigerians hope though, that all the presidential drama will eventually end seriously for a country that needs serious-minded leaders to chart a way out of mindless insecurity, collapsing economic, deep sectional suspicions, corruption, abuse of office, deplorable infrastructure and collapsed social and educational amenities issues pulling the country down.
